A UNI dropout whose side hustle business was initially branded a "fashion crime" is now a multimillionaire tycoon at the age of just 27.
Davie Fogarty is the young founder of multimillion-dollar fashion brand ‘The Oodie’.
The brand describes itself as selling “the world’s most popular wearable blanket”.
Earlier this year Davie revealed The Oodie has turned over more than £223m since launching the business with his last £279, four years ago aged just 23.
The entrepreneur was believed to have a net worth of £24 million as of last year, but has said that before the success of The Oodie was a string of failed businesses.
Mr Fogarty didn't study business at university, and pulled out of a marketing and mining engineering degree during his first year
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And before launching the Oodie, Mr Fogarty tried his hand at iPhone cases, personal training and a Vietnamese roll shop.
The young millionaire also revealed in a TikTok video that a failure to consider the upfront costs of producing, delivering and selling a range of weighted toys resulted in a loss of half a million dollars.
“We had an indication that weighted toys was going to be a great category and I was selling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of these toy 'Kevins'.
“I was like: ‘This is going to be huge. I'm going to build a whole brand around these weighted toys’”.
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Having spent £24,000 developing the idea, including developing storylines centred around each character, the entrepreneur stumbled into a problem.
“The one thing I just completely ignored was the unit economics of the product – and you need to make sure you have enough contribution margin to get eyeballs on the product, generally through Facebook.
“I just lost my common sense around what I could actually charge for the product.
“Trying to charge AU$60 for a weighted toy – parents don't have that for their kids, there's alternatives out there.”
Mr Fogarty estimates he “lost” between £167,000 and £279,000 through “irrational” thinking – and said he is still paying off this huge cost today by selling remaining inventory.
Davie told The Mail: “The total losses won't end up remotely close to £279,000 as the inventory is slowly selling through over time, won't spoil and most of it will be recouped.
“However that was the approximate upfront investment for the project.”
Later in his career came The Oodie, a wearable blanket.
The brand launched in 2018, but sales exploded during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, when lockdowns confined millions to their homes.
In July 2020, more than 20,000 people in the Australian state of Victoria alone purchased an Oodie.
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“Loungewear in particular has grown in popularity since the pandemic and we found there was a strong appetite for Oodies and other items over the last 18 months,” says Davie.
Mr Fogarty now owns ten brands, including Calming Blankets and pet care brand, Pupnaps. The brands are all part of his company Davie Group.
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